Duty Session 315: Travel with Triffids

The peaceful looking beach where the Triffids have been spotted is where the group manages to head first. It's a simple Hunter's Guild sounding task. But then again, it's also tracking down carnivorous plants as well! The thing that really leads the group to it is the heavy perfume in the air.

Despite it all, Giganpor did owe the Mage's Tower one for something they did. And that's what lead him to take on the task whenever he heard about it. So, here he was at the forefront of it with his shield, armor, and poleaxe equipped and ready for battle and to track down some rather troublesome sounding plants.

Of course, he made sure to send out a call to recruit people as well of course.

These quests are never as simple as they seem. Kauchemar learned that the hard way when she had a rabid giant bun-bun bite off part of her leg.

So maybe that's why she's here, being Bards tend to be supportive Adventurers. Or she had some divine insight that she would be needed by others. Or just see others. You never really know with the Nightmare.

You'd never guess there was potential danger lying ahead with the cheerfully casual way she strolls up. Though her gaze falls upon Giganpor, and she smirks a bit. "Well look who finally came out of his forge again."

    Merek walks along with the party and will adjust the strap which he wears, while he waves to the people of the party, "Nice to see ya all," he will note, while he takes a look to Tenko when she comes about, "Always great when you are about," he offers to the woman, then a nod along to Miyako, Kauchemar, all the people.

    Setsuna knew of the trouble with triffids. He had tried to help solve this trouble once before and it really did not end well, in fact it gave him nightmares of bunnies for a week. So he heard another group was going for triffid's so he tagged along and just sorta of stands to the back with his skeleton knight and waits around. He is mumbling to himself as he waits , " No rabbits, no rabbits, no rabbits. We don't need any rabbits. " Who has a fear of rabbits? Setsuna doesn't , nope not at all.

Yeowang has joined Giganpor's quest, having heard about the difficult task. She nods a greeting to those present, and looks around, standing ready. As usual, she doesn't look the part of a hunter, her simple garb doesn't look particularly outdoorsy, while blouse and black pants, with a thick coat over top, against the cold. Long blonde hair is piled atop her head in a large bun, skewered with a long needle. A bow in one hand is her only weapon, though even that is not her preferred means of attack. She stands ready for mayhem, though, it could happen at any time.

Tenko's presence is one that those who know her have come to expect from her. She is quietly observing from the side, taking in the various arrivals. Merek gets her attention as she turns her masked face to meet him, "Not planning on anything crazy today, I trust." She says, with a faint hint of humor in her voice. His reputation exists for a reason, after all.

    "Hey, all," Miyako calls as she joins the group. "Gorgeous day, isn't it?" She smiles lazily and walks up to the group, nodding to Merek. "Long time no see, Mer."

    She materializes a camp-stool from her inventory and settles on it. The seat is followed by a notebook and pencil, and she proceeds to review the notebook's contents and add to them.

    A group had formed to take on a Hunter's Guild quest. Wyldfire, always willing to support the Hunter's Guild in its efforts to make Yamato a better place for all, has joined with the others to go after the elusive Triffids. Though she's not much of a herbalist... But thankfully all they probably need to do is just punch the Triffids until they give up the goods. If Wyldfire understands correctly.

    While the group gathers and prepares, Wyldfire is off to the side, throwing a few fiery punches and kicks while she warms up. Literally, as the flames dance across her fists and feet. Finally she does join with the group, giving a nod to those present and introducing herself, since she doesn't know pretty much any of them, "Yo. I'm Wyldfire, with a Y. Let's go kick some Triffid ass!" Do Triffids have asses?

Always willing to help the hunter's guild, it's Kotono.

Although she seems to have gotten a little lost...

Because arriving just now is the Spriggan herself, stopping to catch her breath before looking around. "I don't get it, how could I have gotten disoriented?" With a shrug, she twirls her blades and says, "Well, let's do this."

Giganpor clears his throat, "Thank you for coming." He pauses, considering something. His shadow in the sun's light suddenly shifts a bit into horse's head for a moment before shifting back. "Well, I do need to come out of the forge to get materials and new ideas." He says in reply to Kauchemar.

"In any case, the Mage's Tower said they want us to trace these thing's route among other things. They are carnivorous, so if you see a plant with teeth it's probably one of them. Let's see if we can't pick up the trail." Giganpor states.

Unfortunately picking up a trail of mobile plants seems to be a bit hard. The foilage is just too thick at times, and there's something to be said about following these things easily.

Giganpor sighs, looking at the others, "Spread out a bit, keep sight of each other, and let's see what we can do? I mean, they can't be that hard to find."

    Miyako spends some time looking around for signs of triffids, but she's never been much of a hunter. Instead she spends her time chatting with Kotono, catching up on what her friend has been doing the past few days. "... and I've really gotta hunt up Miho," she eventually gets around to mentioning. "Get something made to replace my naginata."

Looking around for any sign of triffids, Kotono squints at the ground and even gets on her hands and knees. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, she comes up empty handed. "Oh dear... This is not good." She sighs. "I really need to improve myself."

Yeowang was ready for a difficult challenge, but she's brought her A-game today. She's been practicing some of the less fighty hunter skills, the tracking and such, and that practice pays off now, when, with a bit of effort, she manages to find the trail we're looking for. "I've got something," she tells the others, and while warning them off the path so as not to scuff the strange trail, she will follow it, moving forward after the foe, whatever it may be.

    Setsuna was a little better prepared this time as his eyes glow with magical energy trying to draw out the unnatural pieces of the world from the natural. Unfortunately even though he finds a trail for a few minutes before losing it again. "I swear, we are going to need a whole pack of hunters to find the damn triffids at this rate." Setsuna continues to look but won't manage to pick out the trail.

    Wyldfire snerks, "These things have teeth? I'd like to see them try and take a bite out of me!" Though at the rate the group is going, that may never happen.

    As they split up to look around, Wyldfire tromps her way through the thickening flora. She's looking around, but not spotting much. Maybe there's a different approach, such as say luring out a stray triffid. Unfortunately, Wyldfire has never hunted triffids before so can't speak to their favourite food. This does not bode well for her hunting efforts.

Tenko is not very good at tracking, it would seem, despite her enhanced were fang senses. The kitsune is attempting to hunt down the triffids, but it appears that they are going to be elusive as ever, "Are we even sure they come out this way?"

Kauchemar has good senses as an equine, but even a nightmare's aren't really attuned to this kind of search. They tend to be a bit more... subtle in stalking potential pray. Eventually all she can do is shrug. "Yeah I got nothing.... You should of never said it couldn't be that hard to find," she adds with a teasing shake of her head.

    Merek will look to the place, and nods while taking a look, "This will not be easy, all the same. We will do what we can, be prepared, the boss fight will take up the whole of the thing," he notes.

Giganpor shifts up to his were-lion form, a summoning circle being what he steps through to do so seamlessly as he starts to look around to no avail. "According to the intelligence we do have, they did." He looks over at Kauchemar, "That reminds me, I need to talk to you when this is over. I've been thinking about giving my nightmare away. Not sure if the whole shadow ritual would work for others, though."

So busy talking he actually misses tracks, too, it seems.

Eventually, the group ends up following Yeowang's path... and find something a bit larger than the carnivorous plants they are supposed to be facing.

A sudden rapid stomping and *THUMP* sounds as a dire beast shows up. A dire bun bun. That's actually apparently wearing armor of stone. A jagged crown of the stone rests on it's head as it screeches and starts to bounce around trying to crush people.

Giganpor calls to the others as he moves out of the way, "Since when do these things have armor!?" He calls to the others.

    Setsuna stops midstep when he hears the stomping. "Oh no its coming." As if he is ushering in its appearence the dire bun bun appears and Setsuna shakes his head of bad memories. So much so with the bad memories that he may have over reacted as he sends his skeleton knight at the bun and raises up a large earth club for the knight to bash over the rabbits head. Only then does Setsuna remember something and shouts, " The armor is like weighted clothes for that thing. Do not strip it of it's armor unless absolutely needed."

    Merek looks to the bun bun while he brings up that divine shield, "Alright, you know what. I don't like bun bun." The man manages to defend along with the party and takes time to begin adjusting.

Yeowang erks as the trail she followed leads not to our desired opponent, but to something else, entirely. Just as fearsome, the triffids' predator, also hunting for them, presumably? But there's no time to talk, it seems this giant bun-bun will settle for adventurers for its supper. Her initial strikes do next to no damage, unfortunately, but seeing that it wears a strange earthen crown, she will strike directly at the crown. This requires a radical rethink of her technique, but she manages it, and lands several telling hits.

Sometimes you find things not easy to work with, and sometimes you do.

With a little Earth magic, Kotono is able to take on the beast with less difficulty than she imagined. "Let's rock and roll, shall we?" Kotono comments with a grin.

"What's comi--" Kauchemar's retort is cut short by the stomping emergence of the dire bun-bun. "Oh great, this again...." If anything, after the bun-bun festival she's taking this as a serious threat, immeadiately bringing up her Binder Shield... and still getting knocked on her ass when the hangry rabbit slams into it.

Tenko's attention is suddenly drawn to the huge bun bun, and she frowns behind her mask. She highly doubts her blade will do much to that stone armor, so she figures she's going to need to come up with something else to attack it.

She quickly moves away from the group in order to get some seperation, and once she's able to, she kicks one foot down to the ground, dislodging a large rock with her magic and kicking it with force towards the King in order to try to smash it's rock armor with another rock.

    Wyldfire walks out into the clearing with the others, but then pauses at the sound of rapid thumping. She frowns a little, "That... Does not sound like a triffid." A dire bun bun bursts out of the the surrounding bushline and rushes towards the group! It starts bouncing around the group.

    Wyldfire cries out, "You've got to be KIDDING! We dont have time for this shit." She bangs her fists together and stamps a foot into the ground, activating a Sword Arte that causes her skin to take on a metallic sheen.

    As the bun turns to charge her, Wyldfire charges back, "AHHHHHHHHHH!" She crashes into the bun, initially pushed back across the ground. But as she digs her feet into the ground, she halts the bun's progress, managing to grapple it for a few seconds so the others can get hits in, "GO! BLAST THIS THING!"

    Miyako quiets as the party follows what seems to be the right trail, head on a swivel as she watches for oncoming nasties. The moment the Dire Bun gambols into the clearing her jaw drops.

    "... WHAT?" she exclaims, coherently.

    She shakes her head, shrugs, and slaps Kotono on the back. "Go get 'im, Ko-chan," she says. Miyako then squats, inscribing runes in the dirt with a dagger, muttering incantations - and when she completes the spell, a wall of dirt rises up from the ground in front of the rabbit-monster!

    And unfortunately the Dire Bun just sort of smashes its way through the wall with ease. "Damn," the Spriggan mutters. "Okay, time to play hardball."

Solid thumps come around, until the Bun Bun King is slammed by a club, and a lot of the tanks slow it down. Giganpor happens to show what some of that armor forging is good forward as he stabs at a section that's not protected quite as well. "Here! Hit here! Go for the eyes as well, and tail!" He says, using his pole axe to point before diving away as the thing takes off.

The stone clad King Bun starts to charge through the party again and again, turning and charging. It's an endless stampede practically as it's pattern of attack. It even wrecks a few trees with it's weight as it keeps up the charging catastrophe.

Giganpor calls to the others, "Scatter! Keep to ranged and use the trees if you can! It doesn't turn that well!"

    Merek looks to the bun bun while he will lift up the potion with him, then he throws that, while it will begin to explode about into the bun bun. With that, the man begins to shift and prepare, "Well, we need to keep fighting!"

"Don't need to tell me twice." Kauchemar looks over to Tenko. "Get it's attention in multiple directions, make it split its attention. It can't keep up with -all- of us." And then with that she takes off. Water surges around her hooves as she uses one of her trademark techniques and a bit of hydroplaning to slide and skate between the trees, making her that much harder to follow. Moving around at the edge of awareness is something she is very good at, after all, skirting the confrontation while other's keep the monsterous thing's attention.

Tenko is a fast fighter, rather than a powerhouse. So striking from multiple angles is important for her, as she nods back to Kauchemar. She moves quickly off to one side, and then when the bun turns towards her, she is quick to dodge out of the way, leaving it to run through an afterimage of her as she disappears and then re-appears on a side, "Don't let up! Keep at it!" She calls out to the team

Sometimes it's better to run than fight. And being the swift Spriggan she is, Kotono decides to put that point into action. Swiftly dashing this way and that, the young Spriggan avoids being caught completely.

As the huge, savage bun weaves back and forth through the clearing, Yeowang lays hastily improvised traps in its path. It doesn't seem to care. But that much -is- enough to whittle down its health a bit more, so that's a good thing. She spends the intervening time in the brush, hastily jamming wooden bits together, sharpening stakes, and generally doing huntery things she never expected to use. Things she didn't now in real life, but she seems to know them, here. So strange, but now's not the time to think about -that-.

tSetsuna looks at the bun's hp bouncing almost as much as the bun itself and all he can do it try to use some earth magic to create a pitfall trap. It would be a quick way to pin it down to bring down bigger moves, but in the end Setsuna almost falls in to his own trap and the bun doesn't even notice.

    "Ranged!? HAH!" Wyldfire just meets the dire bun head on.

    Again.

    And again.

    And yet again.

    The Salamander is taking a number of those hits. But is proving to be rather tough as she refuses to back down against the rampaging monster.

    Seeing the failure of her attempt to block the monster, Miyako switches tactics. This time she conjures a series of flickering spheres that alternate between light and shadow, swirling about in her hands.

    She dodges a charge by the monster, loosing one of her shadow-balls at it, the darkness wrapping around its head and distracting it for a few seconds while others attack it. "Ole!" she shouts, spinning about, and waits for the first to dissipate before loosing the second, keeping up a running barrage of distractions.

The running Bun King continues to go again and again. It's health steadily declines.

Giganpor meanwhile happens to get an idea and pulls out some rope. Apparently all that axe tossing comes to use as he actually slings an axe and a rope to nail the Bun King in a vulnerable spot and manages to slow it for a moment as he wraps the other end around a tree. At least until the rather flimsy tree branch snaps and ends up smacking the Bun King over the head as it turns to charge again.

Then something rather unexpected happens as a pest introduces itself. A white blur bounces out of no where, boops the Bun King, and it heals back!

Giganpor blinks a few times at that, then looks at the others, "Did that thing just heal from being booped?" He says mid-fight.

And then it happens again. And again.

By then, Giganpor sighs and looks at the others even as he keeps his guard up and his weapon ready. "Anyone else feel like we're in some demented cartoon and really want to slow this thing so we can go all out now?"

Yeowang looks alarmed as Giganpor calls out the healing minibuns and she darts after one, but it's way too fast for her. So, she breaks out her bow, and attempts to shoot them as they come in to do the healing thing. But even that pause is not enough for her to draw a bead and fire, her arrows landing left, right, short, and long, but never on target. She frowns in frustration, but what else can she do?

As she's waterskating between the trees Kauchemar catchs a glimps of the speedy bun-bun trying to heal the rabbit king back up. "Oh fuck no, we are not playing that mechanic in middle of a fight." But rather than try to chase down the fleetfooted little bastard she catchs a tree to stop herself. There's a crunch of soil as her hooves connect and dig in to brace herself.

Then Kauchemar does what she does best. Opens her mouth wide, and unleashes one of her dark enfused death metal screams!

Why chase the bastards when she can just blast a wide area with her horrific vocals and scare the little assholes off.

    Wyldfire groans just a little, "Damnit... This thing is REALLY starting to get annoying!"

    The Salamander continues to beat on the dire bun with flaming fists, bringing its HP down, only for it to go back up again with that white blur. Unfortunately the thing is moving FAST. And as it's not coming directly at her, she doesn't have much of a means of going after it. So she's leaving that to the others while she focuses on exchanging blows with the bun, all the while wondering, "You guys got that stupid thing yet!?"

    Miyako stares in disbelief as the mini-lop boops its way in and heals the boss-monster up to full. "What the actual.... oh frelling no you do not."

    She gathers another set of swirling shadow-spheres and starts running around the clearing, hurling one after another at the little white THING whenever it appears.

    Too bad it's too quick for her to hit often enough to actually buy the time needed to kill the boss. :(

    Setsuna chooses the option of poison, he was ready for this situation and had pocketed a few poisoned carrots after the last time he was here. It wasn't his prefered way to work but it is one of the only ways he thought of dealing with this bun bun. Without a second thought he tosses the poisoned carrots out towards the bun bun and waits to see if it takes the bait.

Time for magic again. This time it's dark magic. Nothing to it, right?

Wrong.

This time, Kotono's spell fizzles and she sighs. "Oh, where did I go wrong?"

    Merek looks along to that bun bun while he takes a moment to lift up a hand with the potion that will poison it. While it works, there is not a lot else to do when it looks like they aren't able to get the creature down. The man looks to the party. "We should be able to win!"

Despite it all, the group eventually just decides to go all out on the Bun King until it gets down to one quarter despite the healing pest. It takes a longer while than anticipated, but eventually all the attacks finally bring it until the next boss stage hits. At the same time multiple members manage to tag the healing pest with ranged attacks so much it looks like a pin cushion that's been barbecued and brought back to life for a second before it pixelates.

There's a thud as the plates drop away. Turning back to the Bun King after some gladness to be rid of the healing pest is the realization that it's now very much faster, with less armor, and that crown on it's head started to glow. The thing's charge goes through the group quickly, and some of the damage is a lot harder than before. But one thing's for sure, time to finish this fight!

Giganpor calls to the others, "Stand fast, get closer so we can catch it in our crossfire! The armor's gone, so it's just all power and speed now!"

Yeowang nods at what Giganpor says. If it's all power and speed, that's a thing she can do. It's a DPS race, now, it seems, but Yeowang is a DPS person, and leading in with a flying roundhouse kick, she boots it in the head. Hard. The force of the blow pushes her back, but she darts back in, striking hard, punches and kicks knocking off a few HP at a time. Every bit helps, right? Looks like everyone else is unloading as well, using their big attacks to good effect, and she's glad she chose to do the same. Kick-strike-punch, she combos her way under the bun's guard, drills it in the breadbasket, then ducks out as it prepares a counter. It takes a lot of doing, but it is done.

Kauchemar summons the ghostly sword to go with her shield. "It's payback time for the spring festival disaster. Let's make this rapid rabid rabbit into rab-bits!" And then she throws the sword.

Well throw isn't entirely accurate, it's more like launch, as the possesses weapon hurtles straight for one of the now unarmored and vulnerable body parts of the giant bunny king guided by the keen precision of it's summoner.

Followed a moment later as Kauchemar flings the shield as well, slamming it into the monster for another hard blow. "You're late, you're late, for a very important date.... YOUR OWN FUNERAL!"

    Merek will assist with magic that heals as well as defends along the party. Then he nods to the people, "Alright, it looks like we will win!"

This time, Kotono goes on the offensive, using her blades to her advantage, and this time her blades serve her well.

Keeping a strong focus and a sharp eye (no pun intended, seriously!) she flies with her blade like it's nothing at all.

"Yeah! That was great!"

    Wyldfire apparently doesn't know the meaning of the word Evasion. As with each charge that the dire bun makes against her, she meets it in kind with a punch of fiery wrath. And given how many charges the bun is making, this winds up being quite a few...

    Punch, "YOU-"

    Punch, "-STUPID-"

    Punch, "-RABBIT-"

    Punch, "-PROBABLY-"

    Punch, "-SCARED-"

    Punch, "-OFF-"

    Punch, "-THE-"

    Punch, "-DAMN-"

    Final punch, "-TRIFFIDS!"

    By the end of it, Wyldfire is looking a little worn out, panting heavily. And her HP bar is pretty low, from all the charges. But she has a smug grin on her face as the dire bun fades away into pixels of light.

    With the little buff-bunny finally put down by the combined efforts of several of the party, Miyako turns her attention back to the big guy... and hurls herself to the side, rolling through a bramble, to get out of the way of its charge.

    By the time she's picked herself up from it, the beast is closely engaged, so she goes back to her distraction strategy and hurls spheres of shadow at its head while the others cut it down.

    "Finally," she says as it falls. "Bloody hell, that was insane," she says as she slumps against a tree and settles to the ground. "Ko-chan?" she calls out. "I say we find out if Hifumi has rabbit on the menu, hmm?"

This is really what Tenko is built for. Once the armor is dropped, and the bun is fully exposed, she is able to go to work with her blade. Using her flaming strikes, she slashes into the bun repeatedly, moving every time it tries to strike back at her and attacking again from another angle.

She uses the distractions provided by other members of the party in order to land her strikes with practiced precision. This isn't the reason they came out here at first but she'll not allow this threat to stand.

    Setsuna watches as the bun loses the armor and the necromancer sighs, he knew it was coming but really had hoped they could burn it down fast enough to skip the stage. To help catch the rabbit he summons forth a pair of skeleton minions to work with the skeleton knight and himself to help corner the rabbit in to a corner so others can deal the damage. Fortunately if the bun bun lost it's armor that meant that this fight was almost over and this nightmare fight will be over.

Taking some of the attention, Giganpor calls out, "Listen to the Heaven's Roar!" And there's a sudden roar from him literally. A burst of sound that blasts out, catching the Bun King's attention as the Were-Lion actually soaks one of the charges, then stops it nearly all together for the final strikes near Wyldfire. The Bun King's actually shivering a bit from the sound waves that Giganpor's armor is giving off as he holds himself fast with poleaxe and shield handy.

Letting it go again, he lets it get nailed by Wyldfire and the rest once they are in a position to do so. The thing finally pixelates thanks to Wyldfire's punches, Tenko's blade of fury, and it being dogpiled by a lot of other stuff. Including skeletons.

By the time it's all done, the group's exhausted, has lost the Triffid trail, and is back to square one... with a bunch of left over armor pieces that they pick up.

Giganpor plops down on the thoroughly trampled grass, ground, and such as he sticks the poleaxe in the ground and looks around. "So... someone said rabbit at Hifumi's?"

Looking to Miyako, Kotono says, "I dunno how I feel about rabbit after that." She chuckles. "But to each their own, right?" She looks to Giganpor. "We were going to look at getting a bite to eat together. Care to join us?"

Yeowang arches a brow at Giganpor, but says to Kotono, "I currently find myself not favorably disposed to rabbits."

    Wyldfire leans forward, hands on her knees as she catches her breath. Then to the others she says, "Screw rabbit!" She turns around, starting to head back in the direction they came from, "I need some booze." Sounds like she's in for Hifumi's.

When the ghostly sword returns to her once the fight is done Kauchemar uses it to wedge up an edge of discarded king bun armor far enough to get her fingers around it. Then pull it up until inventory triggers and it can be deposited inside. Then stands up, dusting her hands off after dismissing the Binder duo. "Am I the only one here that finds it morbidly amusing that not all bun-bun are cute little fluffballs that do nothing else?" Jabs a thumb over her shoulder at Tenko. "And she's a fox, they eat rabbits normally."

    Setsuna takes a deep breath as he looks at where the bun bun was. " Ok , I just want to clarify this with people. That was not a triffid right? We are sure that is not a triffid? This is the second time I have come hunting for ttriffids and only found buns . So just please someone confirm that thing was not a triffid for me. " It appears the necromancer is getting tired of hunting triffids at this rate.

    Miyako nods, tiredly. "No, that was not a triffid. Just a stupid dire minilop. Thus my desire for rabbit-burgers. If Hifumi can come through with them." She reaches up to wave Kotono over to her. "How many does that make, Ko-chan?"

Yeowang glances sidelong at Setsuna. "It was a bunbun. You saw the ears, right?" She a hunter, she undoubtedly picked up a few meat drops from the monster, and she nods about Hifumi making rabbit burgers. "That sounds appropriate. As to why we encountered it, rabbits hunt triffids. It's a simple case of two hunters encountering one another. Though if rabbits are hunting the triffids, I wonder why the Guild needs them culled?"

Tenko snorts faintly at Kauchemar, "I don't think I could eat that one." She says, though she is grinning under the mask, "Perhaps next time I'll try though."

With the group a bit divided, they at least decide to head back to civilization. Giganpor, meanwhile, is studying the stone armor. "Huh... you know, this stuff was pretty tough. Wonder what I can do with it?" He taps his knuckles against it, considering it seems a new armor project as the group makes their way back Triffid-less.